Well, as you can see, this blog has undergone a facelift! Gone is the pink, flowery birdy banner (though it’s still on the forums for now) and in is the cleaner banner design. This is to reflect the blending of new multiple product lines in my life and in my shop. The paintings are still there, but now I am adding in more ’softlines’ such as plush bears, pillows and more, so wanted to reflect that!

You’ll also see a few more personal posts here as I am shutting down two of my other blogs to give this one more attention. I look forward to more chnages in the next few months, but these are enough to carry me through the holidays! Thanks for reading and taking an interest!

Ever have one of those Homer Simpson ‘Doh!’ moments where it’s pointed out to you that you’ve gone brain-dead on something that should have been completely obvious? I just had one of those and it wasn’t very much fun. I’ve given some friends copies of my business card in case they run into anyone who might be interested, and from that, could have had a client if only I had thought through my web site before I launched it. You see, one of my business cards made it’s way into the hands of a chiropractor who was interested in seeing if I had any paintings he might want to use for his office but when he followed the URL on my business cards, it brought him to this blog and what does he find? Arts and crafts from everyone BUT me! Doh! Read More

No…not THAT kind of recovery! Remember the dead hard drives? A friend of mine was able to get some of the information back that wasn’t garbled off of the backup drive and part of it was my email file! So I have all of the Daily Artisan Submissions that I thought I had lost! Yay! I’m going to spend today getting these scheduled and have copied them onto a USB drive as well to play it safe. I’m still not going to accept any new ones until I get the automated system running, but now I can stop feeling bad for the ones that had been lost!

Unfortunately, my financial data and patterns were not among the recovered information.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals, vegetables and minerals… I have a PC that is back up and running and am able to actually work on my blog again! Unfortunately, the possessed PC took some serious casualties with it when it was exorcised. I’m a technology Geek but I’ll keep the explanation simple: the part that manages how hard drives store their information went bad, not just a single drive. This COULD have been good news, in a sense, because all I would have had to do was replace that part, but it wasn’t good because when it went bad, it wrote gibberish all over the hard drives. As I was copying everything I could off to another drive in the system when it seemed like the first was starting to go, I thought I had a good backup but because it was the controller for the hard drives, it wrote gibberish on the backup drive as well.

The result? I lost ALL of my data that was on the PC. Every last little bit. All of my financial records, all of my address book, all of my emails, all of my patterns that I had created on the PC. The works. So computer-wise, I am essentially starting from scratch again.

The worst news for this blog is that my prepared file with all of my Daily Artisan Spotlight posts was also lost, along with all of the emails to re-create it. So I have a few DAS posts that are already online and thus weren’t affected so they’ll run, but then I’ll be out. That said, I am NOT taking new submissions right now. I’ve decided that I need to complete the program that will automate those posts so that I don’t need to do anything on my local PC for them to be scheduled and run. I don’t want to risk losing them again. So you will see that the ‘Free Press’ page has been removed and I removed the ‘Be Reviewed’ page as well while I work on getting things back to where they need to be.

I apologize for the inconvenience for all of those who had submitted. I hope you’ll bear with me as things move forward.

Well, since I launched the Daily Artisan Spotlight on April 28th, it’s popularity seems to have grown every day. Yesterday I had 28 submissions for the largest day yet! More and more people are dropping by to check out the various artisans as well and yesterday this blog had over 200 unique visitors! I think that’s fantastic success and a tribute to the wonderful artisans that have been in the spotlight so far! I’m also happy to say that with the current submissions, the feature is already booked into July so if you want to get scheduled, you’d best get in line quickly!

Of course, all of this success comes at a price. Namely, that I spent about an hour tonight just getting a weeks worth prepped and scheduled to run! It’s a price I’m perfectly willing to pay to help give exposure to all of the great artisans out there but I wanted to let everyone know as I like to notify everyone of their run dates and since it’s taking me a while to get things scheduled, you might not get an email until this weekend!

Another thing I am considering is automating the spotlight process so that when the form is submitted, I get the emailed results but the system automatically generates and schedules the post then sends out the email to notify the artisan of the date. I used to be a programmer in my previous work life, so I can get this done but to be honest, before I put the work into it, I want to know if it’s worth the sweat and tears! So please place a comment here and let me know that you appreciate and pay attention to this feature before I make the final call! After all, if no one really appreciates the effort, I can use the time to work on my own crafting projects!

Let me know how YOU feel!

NOTE: This is a very text-heavy post but I think it’s important that it be posted for everyone to see who may want a review!

Yesterday I launched my new regular feature: seller / shop reviews. I am very happy with the response and so wanted to use today’s post to discuss what my plans are for these posts, and what I am looking to add moving forward. Ultimately, my goal is not only to use this blog as a means of promoting myself and my thoughts, but also to help other creative individuals think differently about their work, their self-promotion and how to support positive interaction in an ever-growing field of creative peers! Let’s look at how I am proposing to do that, starting with the reviews.

Read More

 Places, everybody! Places! Welcome to Fantasy… wait….wrong location! Welcome to Mindless Pursuits, the official blog of Keith, your humble host and arts and craft fanatic! I am pleased that you have decided to stop by and check out my new blog. That’s correct: I said ‘new’ as I have a previously existing blog that covers all sorts of facets of my life, and not just crafting. That said, my more personal blog tends to be all over the board as to topics and content and I wanted to have a blog that had a tighter focus on just the art and crafting elements of my life. Thus, this Mindless Pursuits blog was born!

In this blog, I am planning to discuss the projects I’ve completed, the projects I’m working on, how my approach towards project ideation and construction occurs for different craft types, and try to provide insight into different techniques and approaches. I am also hoping to provide the occasional view into the lives of my fellow artists and crafters and to provide insight for fledgling entrepreneurs into how to market and sell their creations through my own experiences as I move forward. Mostly though, I hope to provide some fun, entertaining and interesting commentary of the arts and crafts I so deeply love and enjoy working on!

 So how about some quick facts on the handsome guy pictured above? I am 39 years old and the very proud father of two little girls, ages 6 and 9. I’m single and live with my 4-year-old cat Lexi in an apartment in the ever-changing seasonality of Minnesota in the United States of America. While I wish painting and crafting could be my full-time job, I’m far too new at it and so I spend my days working in information technology as a technology architect for a large national retailer.

What artistic endeavors do I undertake? I love to paint. Mostly flowers as they make me happy but I also love to work on landscapes and am occasionally returning to my roots as an abstract painter though I choose not to share much of those creations publicly. I sew and love to make everything from costumes to formal-wear to accessories. I also cross-stitch, crewel embroidery, paint enamels on glass, pottery (though I have no kiln to fire anything in), wood-burning, scrapbooking and knitting! I love to learn new creative skills and so am continually trying to expand my repertoire!

I hope that provides a good introduction to me and where I am planning to take this blog. I plan to update often, so keep an eye on this space!